Best toys for inside chewers? - Page 4

 Tess,

Would you explain what you mean by this statement?

" dogs are quite resistant to salmonella"

Though a certain percentage of dogs in some studies suggest some shed salmonella, that does not mean, at all, that dogs are resistant to salmonella. What it does mean is that they were infected at some point. There may be a reason why a certain dog does not get as sick as another with salmonella or some other pathogen, but it is not exactly related to what I think you mean by resistance. Please explain.

Tons of Kong toys. I have 2 extreme chewers and kong toys keep them busy all the time.

If your Kong toys keep your 'extreme chewers' busy, they are NOT extreme chewers.

Here's what an extreme chewer does to a black Kong, the toughest one they make:

From this (notice beginning of damage)

To this, in a couple of days!



Tire biter after 10 days:




The culprit, licking her chops over the nice, new Tire Biter. YUUUMMM! Fresh meat!


 

"Tess,

Would you explain what you mean by this statement?

" dogs are quite resistant to salmonella" "

I mean that dogs can consume things contaminated with salmonella without getting sick.  Basically it's due to the pH level of the dog's stomach (kills the salmonella bacteria) and the shortness of the dog's digestive tract (the food doesn't spend that much time there - less time for pathogens to develop).

If people ate the same amounts of raw chicken and other raw foods, if people dug up buried bones and carcasses, etc. and consumed them the way dogs do, the people would be a lot sicker.  Dogs do this all the time and don't get salmonella poisoning.  Of course that's not to say they can't, it's just that they usually don't.  Dogs are shedding salmonella all the time - it's not making them ill.  They're eating raw foods that possibly are contaminated and would make people ill.  The dogs are resistant much more than the people and they don't get ill.

http://www.mountaindogfood.com/HealthCare/Salmonella.htm


http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&A=2232&S=1


Here's a couple general info links.  From the first one: 

"Firstly dogs have a very acidic stomach (pH >1), an environment that is not friendly to any bacteria. Salmonella cannot survive at that pH level and at minimum needs a pH of 4 or higher to grow. Optimal growth doesn’t occur until the environment reaches the pH range of 6.5-7.5 (7). Secondly, there are differences between the length of our digestive tract (8-9m) and that of a dog’s digestive tract (3-4m). This indicates a shorter transient time between intake and excretion and decreases the time that the bacteria have contact with our digestive system. The shorter the transient time the less likely it is that Salmonella can break through the gastrointestinal barrier and enter our system. Also important to note is the differences in the digestion of carbohydrates (significant because of the high grain content in dry dog food). Humans have a-amylase, an enzyme dogs lack, in their saliva that starts digesting carbohydrates as soon as they enter our system. Dogs do not start to digest any carbohydrates they eat until it reaches their stomach with the majority of digestion taking place in their small intestine (4). The high percentage of carbohydrate in most dry dog food leads to situations where the food stays in the system longer (8-12 hours). However because a raw diet is meat based takes about half the time to digest (4-6 hours), thereby limiting the time that any possible bacteria may exposed to their system (2)."

I wonder just how accurate that article is. First of all, they don't know the difference between 'transient' (wandering, e.g. a h omeless person) and 'transit' (the time it takes the food to get from the mouth to the anus).  Secondly, NO carbohydrate digestion takes place in the stomach, in either humans or dogs. The stomach acid only breaks down the food, working especially on proteins.

Also, I seem to remember from my biology classes that meat takes longer to digest than any other food. I believe this would hold true for dogs as well as humans. The structure of the digestive system may have a few differences, but the steps needed to change proteins into glucose, the ONLY fuel the cells can burn, are identical in all mammals.

I don't have time to research this. So, if you think I'm wrong, go ahead, be my guest, and prove it. 

BTW, the pH of the stomach is the same in both humans and dogs: www.ehow.com/about_5039184_ph-stomach-acid.html

Edit: Yes, I know the food goes through the dog's digestive system more quickly because the intestines are shorter. I also found an article saying that dry dog food passes through more slowly than raw meat and bones. I would, however, like to see scientific proof of this.

Antlers are Pharaoh's favorite.

Michele

No, Sunsilver, YOU don't understand. The word "transient" means "staying only a short time," which is why homeless people are referred to as transients, because they can't/don't stay in one place very long.  So the phrase "a shorter transient time" is used correctly in the article.  Time to brush up on your vocab. 

And dogs do have a different stomach pH than humans.  Look it up.  I call BS on the "I don't have time, so you prove it" nonsense.  Here's an article from the University of Michigan to get you started, so consider my statement proved.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/qv11068515677138/

It's a little more reliable source than eHow.

Ahem! May I draw your attention to this sentence in the article? (Thank you very much for posting the link, it's an excellent article!  Too bad the whole article isn't available. It would answer my questions.)

" This review focuses on two aspects of gastrointestinal physiology..... namely TRANSIT TIME (motility) and pH."

YOU are the one who needs to brush up on the subject matter, namely biology, which I studied for four years at University, then taught for seven, before becoming a Registered Nurse, where I had to have a detailed knowledge of the digestive system and how it worked.

BTW, I also taught English, so I have no need to 'brush up' on my vocabulary!

In case you're wondering, 'motility' refers to how fast things move through the gut. In other words, as I said above, TRANSIT time is the time it takes the food to get from point A to point B.  If you've got high motility (short transit time) you've likely got diarrhea.

Sorry, the point remains that the author was not referring to homeless people when choosing the word "transient," and for someone who claims to have both studied biology and taught English, you should've known that.  You are either deliberately misunderstanding the article or else you truly cannot comprehend it. 

Nice try, Nursie, but yes, my education quite equips me to understand the definition of motility and transit time.  Again, you either cannot comprehend scientific articles about the comparative shortness of transit time in dogs vs. humans, which I don't think is true, or else you are deliberately choosing not to notice that the discussion was about relative transit times.

You want to compare SAT, IQ, GRE, and MENSA scores, bring it.